“You are,” Alain said. “Do you trust my decisions?”
She held his eyes with her own. “Yes. I may be the Mechanic, the one trained to fix things, but you, Sir Mage, are very good at fixing things as well. I hope you understand how much I trust you. There will be times when we can’t ask each other for input or advice. Like what happened in Julesport. I just had to act. There may be times when you have to do the same thing. I know you’ll decide well.”
“Thank you,” Alain said, the words coming easily this time. He was still uneasy about not telling Mari, but it seemed to be clear that Asha had been right. Mari would not want that information, and she trusted him to decide what to do. “I have known from the first day we met that you make wise decisions.”
“Oh, sure.” She laughed. “Like when I led us into the desert waste? Or went into Ringhmon City Hall all by myself and ended up in the dungeon?”
“Sometimes the choices available to us are not good,” Alain said.
“You don’t have to remind me of that.” Mari sighed and leaned against him, wrapping her arm around his waist. “But I had a choice to save a Mage or think only of myself, and saving someone else was the right decision. I assume that you agree.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go to bed. Keep acting nice and we may find out if two people can fit into one of those bunks.”
“You always make wise decisions,” Alain repeated.
She laughed as she led him inside.
“Hey, Alain.”
Alain nodded in greeting. Mages were not supposed to notice or care about the weather. But along with reminding him of feelings, Mari had shown him how nice a morning like this could feel, with the ship bounding along over following seas and a warm sun and the blue sky merging into the blue water all around. “Hey, Calu,” he said, proud to be able to display what Mari called “social skills.”
The Mechanic sat down next to him, looking up at the sails. “Mari told us to let you rest today since we might need you at full strength tonight. I wanted to see if you needed anything, though. The blow to your head wasn’t that long ago.”
“I need nothing,” Alain said. “Mari will not rest,” he added.
“No. Right now she’s grilling the captain of the Gray Lady on every little aspect of tonight’s fun and games.” Calu smiled at Alain. “Mari’s always been like that. It’s one of the reasons I’ve always liked her. She’ll see that something needs doing and then she’ll go talk to everyone she can find who knows something about it so she can figure out exactly what to do. Mari doesn’t just accept that something that is wrong or broken has to stay that way, and she doesn’t assume she knows enough on her own to decide what to do. Like she’s doing right now, learning all about what’s going to happen tonight. By the time we meet up with the Pride of Longfalls, Mari will understand enough about what is happening and what should happen that if anything unexpected occurs or goes wrong she’ll be able to know what to do or tell others to do. Did she ever tell you about the time she saved several Mechanics at Caer Lyn?”
“No,” Alain said. “I will ask her.”
“Don’t bother. She’ll wave off the question and say it was no big deal. What happened was that the governor on a lathe was going bad, but the Senior Mechanic in charge of that shop didn’t want to report it because the shop was already behind on a work order.”
Alain nodded, grasping that something had been going wrong but not much more than that.
“Mari,” Calu continued, “stopped by to check on an apprentice she knew. Mari never worked with lathes much but she can tell when a piece of equipment is making a noise that says Run, you fools! She heard that lathe making that kind of sound and declared a safety emergency and ordered everybody else out of the shop. The Senior Mechanic showed up pretty soon, mad as could be that Mari had interrupted the work. He walked over, activated the lathe, and the governor failed. The lathe over-powered so much that it blew apart and filled that shop with as much shrapnel as a high-explosive shell. Somehow the Senior Mechanic survived, but if Mari hadn’t done what she did somebody would have died, maybe several people.”
Something bad had happened, but Mari had kept anyone from dying. Alain understood that much. “Did Mari get praise for her wisdom?”
“Nah.” Calu’s grin this time was crooked. “Admitting that she’d saved lives would mean the Senior Mechanics admitting that one of their own had put those lives at risk. Officially, the Guild reprimanded the Mechanic in charge of keeping that lathe working, even though that Mechanic had been warning about the danger for weeks and been ignored.”
Alain felt a concern crystallizing inside, but did not know how to ask about it. Lacking whatever social skill was needed, he fell back on his Mage training. “Mechanic Calu, this one has questions.”
“What?” Calu gave him a confused glance. “Um, sure. What is it?”
“Your description of Mari’s actions. I know she did something important. I know she saved the lives of others. But beyond that I have no idea what happened or why.”
“That’s no big deal, Alain. It’s not like you’re going to be tested on Mechanic knowledge. There aren’t any commons in the world who would understand it any better than you would.”
“But it reminds me that Mari and I have so many differences.”
“I guess you do,” Calu said with a laugh. “But lots of people do. Take Alli and me. We’re both Mechanics, but I’m a basic skills Mechanic at most things. I’d never gain Master Mechanic status at anything, because nothing hands-on clicks for me. I’m a theory guy, and I’m really good at that. But Alli is one of the best hands-on Mechanics out there. She’d have been a Master Mechanic by now if the Senior Mechanics weren’t worried about her knowing Mari. Alli just has to look at a piece of gear and she knows how to fix it and maybe make it better.”
“This is a big difference between you?” Alain asked.
“Huge,” Calu assured him. “The hands-on types think the theory types—and there aren’t very many of us, just enough to keep the knowledge alive—are pretty useless. And my theory instructors tried to convince me that the hands-on Mechanics were just hammer-pounders. That could come between us. But it doesn’t. Oh, we don’t always see eye-to- eye. That’s just life. But we know what we’ve got in each other.” Calu looked at Alain. “You do know what you’ve got in Mari, right?”
“Yes,” Alain said. “But she must know how flawed I am.”
“Everybody has flaws. Mari has her faults, too, Alain. She can be a little short-tempered—”
“More than a little, sometimes,” Alain said.
“Yeah. And she’s pretty stubborn, and impulsive at times. So she’s not perfect. But she is absolutely loyal. If you’re sitting there thinking Mari’s so wonderful that she’ll leave me for someone better, you can relax. In her eyes there is no one better, and the only person who could convince her otherwise is you, if you start acting wrong to her.”
“I may have to marry you,” Alli said.
Alain looked up and saw that Mechanic Alli had approached as they talked.
Calu covered his face, embarrassed. “How much of that did you hear?”
“Enough,” Alli said. “What do you say? I was going to wait, but we’re about to go on another one of Mari’s death-defying missions, so why not get it done? And we’re on a ship, which means we’ve got a ship’s captain to do the legal stuff.”